GREATER urgency is needed to address the recommendations of the Cricket Review Panel, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves told reporters yesterday.Speaking with the media briefly at the conclusion of the opening ceremony of the 28th Inter-sessional Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Conference, being held at the Marriott Hotel, Dr Gonsalves said the two-day meeting of Heads of Government of CARICOM will see the matter discussed further.
“These are matters that have been litigated in India, and certain conclusions have been arrived at and we have to address this with greater urgency, and I am hoping that sometime during this meeting we can get some further discussion on this, because we talk about it a lot,” he said.
The CARICOM panel was appointed by the Prime Ministerial Committee on the Governance of West Indies Cricket in the wake of the crisis that engulfed the board after the BCCI suspended bilateral ties and slapped $41.97M as damages following West Indies’ decision to pull out midway their India tour in 2014.
The major recommendation arising from the report was the “immediate dissolution of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the appointment of an Interim Board whose structure and composition will be radically different from the now proven, obsolete governance framework.”
The panel also recommended the appointment of a change management expert to run the affairs of cricket in the Region until the new governance structure could be implemented.
The Cricket Review Panel, which was chaired by UWI Cave Hill Campus principal, Professor Eudine Barriteau, also recommended the resignation of the entire Board membership, contending that the “the standards of corporate, collective accountability” demanded such.
In November 2015, the Panel termed the board’s governance structure “antiquated,” “obsolete” and “anachronistic” and as such Prime Minister Gonsalves said, “It is a work in progress; we have to really push for the continued restructuring of West Indies cricket to enhance its democratisation and to make sure that it is sufficiently reflective of the public. This is a public good; that is cricket, which is being run by a private entity.”
The Prime Minister said too that CARICOM has received legal opinions on the matter but there is need for continued deliberations.
“We have legal opinions and those legal opinions have to be properly filtered. There are two legal opinions, which have come to CARICOM as to how we can move forward,” he added.
The Cricket Review Panel was appointed by CARICOM’s Prime Ministerial Committee on Cricket and tasked with the responsibility of assessing the governance structure in West Indies cricket and making recommendations, which could ultimately determine the future of the Board and the sport in the region.